Monday, July 9, 2007

Happy Independence Day, Argentina! Juan turned on the music at 9am. I didn’t want to get up, but I did. I was really cold, probably because it was colder and my hair was still damp. I decided to see if my jeans would fit over my leggings and my sweatpants. Surprisingly, they did! I wore three pairs of pants and five shirts and my fleece that day. We went to the kitchen for breakfast (you had to go outside to get there) and had the usual breakfast. Juan said that because it had snowed and was still snowing, the gaucho party had been cancelled and that it was too cold to go for an all-day hike. He said that we were just going to stay around the estancia for the morning and then we could decide what we wanted to do at lunch. I wished he had let us sleep later! Lots of people went back to bed. I played Phase 10 with Nichelle for a while and finished my homework. We went outside and took pictures of the snow.

We had lunch about 1pm. We had guiso which is a stew. Ours had rice, chicken, and vegetables in it. It was very good. We had white cheese with sweet potato on top with a strawberry jam to spread on it. It sounds gross, but was actually good. It kind of tasted like cheesecake. It was really rich and I couldn’t eat it all. We hung out by the fire for a bit more and then some of us (about half) left to go “trekking.” Because the snow was melting and we were going to be walking through the woods, they told us we should wear a waterproof jacket. Anyone who didn’t have one (like me, oops!) borrowed one from someone else. We rode in the van for a little while down the same road we had ridden the horses the day before. We got out and hiked through a cow field. There was lots of cow and horse poop and it smelled a whole lot better than the car exhaust in Buenos Aires! We climbed over and through barbed wire fences, jumped ditches and streams, and saw parrots and cows. There were these burr-ish things that got stuck in our clothes. They are called “amor seco” or “dry love.” I don’t know why. It was cold, but not bad. We got to a place where we could choose to go back through a field or take a longer path through the woods. We choose the woods. There were lots of big thorny plants in the woods. My hair got stuck several times and then we had to climb over this tree limb that was on a hill and I didn’t know where to put my feet and I had my weight on my wrong foot and I leaned up against the thorn plant. Ow! People tried to help, but I told them not to because I needed to gently remove the thorn plant before they pulled it away. I ended up jumping (in reality it was more like falling) to the ground nearly hugging José as I tried not to fall. We saw tracks from javelinas which are wild pigs. We made it to our ending place where the van was parked (different location than that from which we started) and rode back to the estancia. We had been planning to visit a Jesuit church, but it was too late, so we went back to the estancia and had tea and fried bread things with sugar on them.

We packed up our stuff and sat around and talked. We had tartas for dinner which are like pies with vegetables in them (kiesch). I had a piece of zapalitos (green pumpkin/squash-ish vegetable) and spinach and split a piece of corn/cheese with Taylor. We were given alfajores and then it was time to leave. The van was late and Will and I were worried about making it there on time. The van finally came and after loading up and making sure everyone was there, we left. Two girls who had been absent for a time showed up in time to leave smelling very strongly of pot. I formerly did not recognize that scent, but now I do! It was horrible being in the van with them, the smell was that strong!

We made it to the bus station at 10:15 and went inside to wait. Juan told us the bus was not supposed to come until 10:45. However, when he gave us our tickets, I saw that the time said 10:10. I hoped we had not missed our bus! While we were waiting, we saw a program on TV that is a take-off of Dancing with the Stars. The only difference is that instead of dancing talent, you only needed to be good at removing your clothes. It was really weird. Almost all of the women would start out wearing a normal-looking outfit and then they would unzip it or slide it off and end up wearing a bikini! It was a very long wait. Will asked Juan about the fact that our tickets had a different time on them than he had said. He assured us it was okay and that the time had changed to 10:45.

The bus finally came at 11pm, but when I tried to get on, the man told me to go to a different bus. Another bus headed for Retiro had just pulled up, so I went over to Juan and asked him. He said it should be the first bus, but walked over with me and asked the man at the second bus. That man said it was not his bus and so Juan walked back and talked with the first man. They then left to go inside and discuss it. We were all confused. Some of the students had their luggage already on the second bus and some had it on the first bus. After about a half hour of discussion, we were told that the bus company had messed up and that they did not have our reservation. I really just wanted to get back to Buenos Aires! They finally worked it out so that half of us went on each bus. I wanted to ride on the nicer bus (the second one) because I was hoping we would get blankets, but they needed two more volunteers to ride the first bus. I volunteered because no one else did and then Will followed. I was sent to a seat on the ground floor by the bathroom… joy! We left about 11:45pm, more than 1.5 hours later than our tickets said.